Future of the BGE

[jeremaya]

if the community want the BGE still alive or update… why don’t pay a full time developer for the Blender fundation?

I mean they did this for Blender core, even projects like Morevna: http://morevnaproject.org/2013/05/24/shuttleworth-foundation-flash-grant/

took the desicion to work as a full time dev for improve Synfig: http://www.synfig.org/cms/

what suppose the Yo Frankie project was for?

like the Blender Foundation teach us… if you want to improve something in the software make a project that make full use of it… the actual BGE update a lot with YoFrankie project, imagine what will happend if they our we plan other big cake like that.

But come on if our feelings and opinions stay here nobody will hear us, you are smart people just need to propose a smart solution.

I recently look around the GameKit project (MIT Licence): https://code.google.com/p/gamekit/
its develop is very active! the last commit was in 5 June 2013, I think that this will be the future of the BGE for me at least, it has the Ogre Graphics Engine that has a great amount of documentation and support.

I just feel a bit melancholy for the years learning this engine…

Greetings

[jeremaya]

if the community want the BGE still alive or update… why don’t pay a full time developer for the Blender fundation?

I mean they actually do this for Blender core (when bought some Blender DVD’s) , even projects like Morevna: http://morevnaproject.org/2013/05/24/shuttleworth-foundation-flash-grant/

took the desicion to work as a full time dev for improve Synfig: http://www.synfig.org/cms/

What YoFrankie suppose was for?

like the Blender Foundation teach us… if you want to improve something in the software make a project that make full use of it… the actual BGE update a lot with YoFrankie project, imagine what will happend if they our we plan other big cake like that.

But come on if our feelings and opinions stay here nobody will hear us, you are smart people just need to propose a smart solution.

I recently look around the GameKit project (MIT Licence): https://code.google.com/p/gamekit/
its develop is very active! the last commit was in 5 June 2013, I think that this will be the future of the BGE for me at least, it has the Ogre Graphics Engine that has a great amount of documentation and support.

I just feel a bit melancholy for the years learning this engine…

Greetings

[Ace_Dragon]

@agoose77

I think we may be slightly misunderstanding one another here. I believe that if this is where the BGE is headed, then a fork is an inevitability. I just wished to state that the codebase itself isn’t that troublesome, despite what some may believe.

Well if you think there’s still a possibility of convincing Ton that the core is less troublesome than believed and thus allow the BGE to stay in its current state, I’d say go right on ahead.

I’m just putting a notice out there that says there’s a sizable chance that Ton will not share the same interest as you and I when it comes to modernizing the BGE (which may necessitate a fork).

[Goran]

Maybe I didn’t understand something crucial, but how is this a bad a thing?

I mean, Ton is basically committing to create a whole new system, avoiding all the silly nonsense that plagues KX, and featuring an even tighter integration with Blender.

The BGE source is a mess, which is to be expected when no one really groks the system as a whole: People just keep adding a lot of unnecessary/trivial features, making the “ball of mud” bigger, and leaving the deeper problems unresolved (it’s all they can hope to do with the system as it stands - a fork is not going to change that situation -> only a rewrite can, and that’s basically Ton’s plan).

In my view, development was terminal for quite some time, but that didn’t (and still doesn’t) matter to me, because:

The BGE, as it stands, is a very powerful platform that can be used to make a whole plethora of really interesting games. It doesn’t have the “tech chops” of a cutting-edge AAA engine, but that doesn’t matter, because even if it did, you wouldn’t be able to make a AAA game. If you focus on the games that you could actually make, as an individual, or even with a small independent team, you would see that the BGE is already overkill in many respects.

For people who “need” a “better engine” to make something worthwhile … You should ask for a “better imagination” (if that’s something that can actually be given).

For everyone else: If/when the BGE is finally retired, you can just save the latest blender version that still includes it, and keep using the platform you know and love (assuming the new “interactive system” is worse, and you don’t want to use that).

[agoose77]

I don’t feel that the internals are that “cruddy”. Also, Ace I think that Ton will take the direction that you state.
@Goran (ii) The feeling of the post is that it will be toned down (away from a “game engine”). This may all be some hocum, but let us see.

[Goran]

@agoose77

I don’t feel that the internals are that “cruddy”.

Try making a deep architectural change.

[Akira_San]

Im for the change too. Anyway, if unity got lots of bugs what about Unreal?

[socker]

Well, it seems i’ll have to stick to this version of Blender to atleast be able to finish Virtual Survival and pull out a sequel…

[Ace_Dragon]

@socker

Well, it seems i’ll have to stick to this version of Blender to atleast be able to finish Virtual Survival and pull out a sequel…

The BGE as-is will be perfectly usable until the date that it gets replaced by the new system, so 2.68 and the releases after that will still be fine.

However, if the forked project idea gets going, you might want to jump away from using the version with the core Blender project because the fork will have more features. (HG1’s build already is starting to have some similarities to a fork with all the patches it has that aren’t in trunk, which is why I proposed to start it from his builds).

This is always something that can be started ‘now’ and thus get a bunch of new features and functions right off the bat (using HG1’s build as a springboard), or we can wait another year or two of BGE patches sitting in the tracker in hopes of them being merged one day before anything is done.

[Kupoman]

One thing to keep in mind is that this is merely a proposal. If you feel strongly about the proposed changes, this is the wrong place to discuss them. Voice your opinions to the mailing list instead: http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers, or as a response to the original blog post.

For those interested in my opinion on the proposal, I have posted a response on the mailing list:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2013-June/040789.html

I think the idea of a fork at this time is premature. Instead we need to communicate, in a mature and polite fashion, our ideas and opinions with the blender foundation. Again this is best done on the mailing list, and not these forums.

[vitorbalbio]

Ace Dragon:

I think part of the reason is that it is difficult to quickly get new features pushed into trunk through the system set up by the Foundation. If the community had a fork of the Blender project that involved a version geared for game development, then the process of getting the patches through may very well be much faster.

it’s a point, i agreed that BGE commits are left out too much, but it don’t change the fact that in long-term (even in a short IMHO) we can’t maintain the BGE Core. And it’s so mess that we can’t update it without a really huge work. Maybe much more work than just drop it out and help to stabilize GameKit as a addOn or even build a completely new Blender Game Engine from scratch with what we have of better in OpenGL style coding and OpenSource libs (Ogre3D,Bullet…).

And we don’t even know what kind of feature the “Interactive Mode” will drop out from BGE. I don’t think Logic Bricks is really too important to keep if we get a new node based logic bricks instead. What can be done in a great new way with Python Nodes.

Of all theses options i keep the “Interactive Mode” as the most realistic and gorgeous way to keep blender with a update and upgradeable Engine to build Games and any kind of Interactive 3D softwares if of course we can sell it as a Stand-alone software.

[isyedcg]

I think we need game developers more than game artist now…why not an e-book that teaches the basics of C,C++,Python,architecture of Blender Game Engine,examples of fixing bugs,and more…anyone up for it ?

because that would be easy for someone who is new…and wants to develop BGE ! we cant rely on only few peoples but we have increase game devs then only BGE in the future will be featurefull engine !

[BluePrintRandom]

I like real time meshes, for LOD ect. and real time terrain and map making,

and re-writting everything I started with … Will not be that hard…

[Mahalin]

If I read this correctly, Ton is abandoning the game engine as a true game engine and changing its focus to assist Blender in creation, dubbed ‘interaction mode’.

One of BGE’s best features was its integration with Blender so tighter integration with the Blender core seems like a good idea, but if that means taking away its focus as a true game engine, then maybe that’s not such a good idea. Can it be integrated more without losing its focus? I do agree with him that the GPL license was a big issue as to why it never became a commercial platform for game development. Indie game development is still a newcomer to the industry. An open-source model does not seem to work well for that type of software compared to Kernels, etc. The only way to profit with open-source gaming is to deliver a service such as online gaming. Hmm, I need to ponder over this some more…

It appears that since the BGE has virtually no commercial use, there is not much of a reason to maintain it; thus it becomes an unecessary burden. I don’t know the complete history but I guess the BGE was originally meant to assist Blender and not meant to be a full fledged game engine, but somehow evolved into that (by user demand for more features/functionality?).

If the community wants a true game engine and the developers do not want a true game engine, then a fork is in order. However, this means possibly losing that tight integration with Blender.

As for GameKit, Python is so much cooler than LUA

[Ace_Dragon]

@Mahalin

If the community wants a true game engine and the developers do not want a true game engine, then a fork is in order. However, this means possibly losing that tight integration with Blender.

I keep saying, the proposed BGE fork would also bring with it a rather good chunk of the rest of the Blender app. It would keep the ability to not have to use exporters.

The whole idea of the fork was not to rebel against Ton or anything, in this case it would give Ton a break when he starts on the ‘interactive mode’ because it would not affect the BGE community and there would no reason for stiff opposition (due to it being an independent project).

Now if the BGE in the core Blender software was to get a major burst in feature development and become a lot more powerful by the end of the year, then maybe we would have leverage to convince Ton that keeping the BGE as-is is the way to go, but doing that would require a system that allows for a much faster process with which features go from patch to trunk. (Merging a lot of the HG1 branch features followed by the merging of Kupoman’s GSoC project and Moguri’s multithreading project would be a good start, but we will need more than that).

[BluePrintRandom]

Could this be integrated ?
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Run a “server” for a game, not a application?

[Mahalin]

@BluePrintRandom

Could this be integrated ?
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Run a “server” for a game, not a application?

I’m working on one right now that leverages this tight integration of the BGE and Blender, although I have a different focus and approach compared to what’s been tried since IMHO they all miss a very fundamental problem (see Croquet Project/Open Cobalt, Project Looking Glass, Open Wonderland, etc.). I’m almost done with my demo, but I can’t release it yet since it’s part of a competition hosted by Intel - grand prize is 150K + marketing/development. My hope is to use Blender/BGE as a platform, build a company and community/ecosystem around it and help boost Blender development, but if they take that away, I may have to rethink things. The hard part has always been how to make 3D practical beyond aesthetics and gaming; I think I have just the solution

@Ace Dragon

I keep saying, the proposed BGE fork would also bring with it a rather good chunk of the rest of the Blender app. It would keep the ability to not have to use exporters.

The whole idea of the fork was not to rebel against Ton or anything, in this case it would give Ton a break when he starts on the ‘interactive mode’ because it would not affect the BGE community and there would no reason for stiff opposition (due to it being an independent project).

Now if the BGE in the core Blender software was to get a major burst in feature development and become a lot more powerful by the end of the year, then maybe we would have leverage to convince Ton that keeping the BGE as-is is the way to go, but doing that would require a system that allows for a much faster process with which features go from patch to trunk. (Merging a lot of the HG1 branch features followed by the merging of Kupoman’s GSoC project and Moguri’s multithreading project would be a good start, but we will need more than that).

I didn’t mean for that to be antagonistic, more for blunt clarity. So what would happen is it’d be:
FOSS A: Blender+‘interactive mode’
FOSS B: Blender+BGE

And then have Blender B stay in sync with Blender A?

[BTolputt]

Let’s face it, BGE hasn’t been getting “core developer” love for some time. Whether it’s because they don’t have the time, don’t have the knowledge, don’t have the inclination, or because they think their working on it will invoke the wrath of the Illuminati doesn’t really matter at this stage. The fact remains that Ton is, according to the blog post, redirecting paid developer effort at what he thinks can be achieved and, as anyone who has tried to change Ton’s mind when he’s already made a decision knows, you are going to need some very convincing arguments on the decision’s foundation before you change his mind.

Personally, I think removing the outdated yet still “Blender Foundation approved” BGE from the equation is a good thing for alternate engines compatible with Blender (personal fav: GameKit). People who have found Blender and now want to make games (or vice versa) notice the official BGE, find it’s limitations, and get disillusioned. And that isn’t conjecture, I’ve watched it happen.

Splitting the gaming runtime engine from the asset development tool allows for engines (including BGE) to stand alone on their merits and attract developers that are interested in gaming (but not necessarily everything Blender) to do what they do best. The best asset creation application for asset creation and the best gaming runtime for gaming. There are different tradeoffs for each and keeping the BGE enmeshed with Blender is affecting both.

I know it’s something people hate, but I’m going to compare Blender to other applications used in the same niche. Maya and 3DS Max don’t have a built-in game engine. They DO have a “realtime mode” that they use for previewing game assets & the like, but they focus on features that make the finished product good rather than try to also BE the finished product. You don’t create animated characters in Unreal, you don’t UV in Unity, and one doesn’t paint textures in Doom3

I think that’s a reasonable angle to take.

[JohnnyBlack]

I think that if the integration in blender would also mean core optimizations and deep source changes ,I think this would be good.
Afterall it’s even years since blender really got Some serious improvements,and in the time he has been let behind.
I think integration with blender itself would mean often bug fixes and additions. Wouldn’t they care a bit more about it if its a real part of blender?

They just need to keep the graphics(better than actual) , same scripting and of course an exporter .

PS: with unity pro you are not getting so many bugs ,and you can reach a gold mine if you publish your games on AppStore or GoogleStore.

[BTolputt]

@anon61545252

You are much better off using an MIT licensed game engine and interfacing it with Blender.

This. x10

Honestly, BGE is not better than all the free alternatives, it hasn’t really had much love put into it for years, and no-one is preventing you from using Blender/BGE 2.6x to develop/publish your games at a later date if you rely MUST have the BGE. All that Ton is really doing is acknowledging the BGE has stagnated and removing the languished module(s) from Blender going forward.